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Did Texas mother smother child? Jury’s tough call

Sunday, Aug. 12, 2012 5:01 PM

A Lufkin, Texas, jury convicted Vanessa Clark, a 33-year-old mother, of felony child endangerment after Tristan, her 2-month-old son, died while sleeping in bed with Clark and her husband. Another son, Christian, died under the same circumstances in 2009.

It may not be illegal to sleep with your child, said prosecutor Dale Summa, but it is illegal to put your child in imminent danger.

After losing one child, prosecutors said, Clark should have known better. It was negligent  criminal, in fact  for Tristans parents to sleep with him. The jury agreed.

A colleague of mine found the verdict pathetic.

Pretty soon, he said, the only way to raise a child without going to jail will be to turn the kid over to the state to be raised in a crèche.

This case raises some disturbing issues, particularly because the pathologist who autopsied Tristan  Dallas Chief Medical Examiner Jody Barnard  could not state a cause of death.

Dr. Barnard is a highly competent pathologist whom I know well and once worked with. He told the court just what I would have said: He could rule out death from most diseases or from injury, but couldnt eliminate some possibilities such as certain heart-rhythm abnormalities, smothering and external compression.

Barnard said, rightly, that its possible for an adult sleeping with a small child to inadvertently cover the babys face or roll on it, causing fatal smothering or compression. Its also possible Tristan was murdered  intentionally suffocated. Theres no way to tell.

A lot of forensic pathologists and other professionals have become convinced that just about all babies found dead in bed with their parents were rolled on and suffocated. Im glad Dr. Barnard was more conservative in his opinion because Im not sure thats why these babies die.

I personally dont believe sober people roll on and suffocate their babies. People who are drunk or under the influence? Maybe so. But Id only certify co-sleeping as a cause of death if a child were found dead underneath some part of the body of a bed-sharing adult.

A 2009 article reporting on the dangers of co-sleeping and other risk factors published in the British Medical Journal states: The proportion of (sudden infant death syndrome) infants found co-sleeping in a bed with parents who had drunk two units or less of alcohol and taken no drugs was no different from that of the random control infants.

The authors concluded: In the absence of any evidence that the parent had laid on the infant, from investigation of the scene and circumstances or from postmortem examination, it is a simplistic and unjustified assumption that all unexpected deaths in potentially risky co-sleeping environments are caused by overlaying or entrapment.

Of course, theres another ringer in the Clark case: Vanessa Clark had elevated levels of hydrocodone and Xanax in her body when Tristan died.

Does that make her guilty?

Im glad Im just a forensic pathologist. Id hate to be one of the jurors who had to make that decision.

husercj@co.laplata.co.us Dr. Carol J. Huser, a forensic pathologist, has served as La Plata County coroner since January 2003.